Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (50 page)

"I wonder where Lord Wellington is," he said to Jeremy Johns. "Do you suppose any of these fellows will know?" He looked with some curiosity at a vast, half-built arch at one end of the square. It had a very military appearance and he would not have been at all surprized to learn that Wellington was somewhere at the rear of it.

"But it is two o'clock in the morning, sir," said Jeremy. "His lordship will be asleep."

"Oh, do you think so? With the fate of all Europe in his hands? I suppose you may be right."

Reluctantly, Strange agreed that it would be better to go to the hotel now and look for Lord Wellington in the morning.

They had been recommended to a hotel in Shoemaker-street which belonged to a Mr Prideaux, a Cornishman. Mr Prideaux's guests were almost all British officers who had just returned to Portugal from England or who were waiting for ships to take them on leave of absence. It was Mr Prideaux's intention that during their stay at his hotel the officers should feel as much at home as possible. In this he was only partly successful. Do whatsoever he might, Mr Prideaux found that Portugal continually intruded itself upon the notice of his guests. The wallpaper and furnishings of the hotel might all have been brought originally from London, but a Portuguese sun had shone on them for five years and faded them in a peculiarly Portuguese manner. Mr Prideaux might instruct the cook to prepare an English bill of fare but the cook was Portuguese and there was always more pepper and oil in the dishes than the guests expected. Even the guests' boots had a faintly Portuguese air after the Portuguese bootboy had blacked them.

The next morning Strange rose rather late. He ate a large breakfast and then strolled about for an hour or so. Lisbon proved to be a city well provided with arcaded squares, elegant modern buildings, statues, theatres and shops. He began to think that war could not be so very dreadful after all.

As he returned to the hotel he saw four or five British officers, gathered in the doorway, conversing eagerly together. This was just the opportunity he had hoped for. He went up to them, begged their pardon for interrupting, explained who he was and asked where in Lisbon Lord Wellington might be found.

The officers turned and gave him a rather surprized look as if they thought the question a wrong one, though he could not tell why it should be. "Lord Wellington is not in Lisbon," said one, a man in the blue jacket and white breeches of the Hussars.

"Oh! When is he coming back?" asked Strange.

"Back?" said the officer. "Not for weeks — months, I expect. Perhaps never."

"Then where will I find him?"

"Good God!" said the officer. "He might be anywhere."

"Don't you know where he is?" asked Strange.

The officer looked at him rather severely. "Lord Wellington does not stay in one place," he said. "Lord Wellington goes wherever he is needed. And Lord Wellington," he added for Strange's better understanding, "is needed
everywhere
."

Another officer who wore a bright scarlet jacket liberally adorned with silver lace, said in a rather more kindly tone, "Lord Wellington is in the Lines."

"In the Lines?" said Strange.

"Yes."

Unfortunately this was not quite the clear and helpful explanation that the officer intended it to be. But Strange felt that he had demonstrated his ignorance long enough. His desire to ask questions had quite evaporated.

"Lord Wellington is in the Lines." It was a very curious phrase and if Strange had been obliged to hazard a guess at its meaning he believed he would have said it was some sort of slang for being drunk.

He went back into the hotel and told the porter to find Jeremy Johns. If any one was going to appear ignorant and foolish in front of the British Army he had much rather it was Jeremy.

"There you are!" he said when Jeremy appeared. "Go and find a soldier or officer and ask him where I shall find Lord Well-ington."

"Certainly, sir. But don't you want to ask him yourself?"

"Quite impossible. I have magic to do."

So Jeremy went out and after a very brief interval he returned.

"Have you found it out?" asked Strange.

"Oh yes, sir!" said Jeremy, cheerfully. "There is no great secret about it. Lord Wellington is in the Lines."

"Yes, but what does that mean?"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir! The gentleman said it so naturally. As if it were the most commonplace thing in the world. I thought you would know."

"Well, I do not. Perhaps I had better ask Prideaux."

Mr Prideaux was delighted to be of assistance. There was nothing simpler in the world. Mr Strange must go to the Army's Headquarters. He was certain to find his lordship there. It was a half day's ride from the city. Perhaps a little more. "As far as from Tyburn to Godalming, sir, if you can picture it."

"Well, if you would be so good as to shew me on a map . . ."

"Lord bless you, sir!" said Mr Prideaux, much amused. "You would never find it on your own. I must find a man to take you."

The person whom Mr Prideaux found was an Assistant Commissary with business in Torres Vedras, a town four or five miles further on than Headquarters. The Assistant Commissary declared himself very happy to ride with Strange and shew him the way.

"Now, at last," thought Strange, "I am making progress."

The first part of the journey was through a pleasant landscape of fields and vineyards scattered here and there with pretty little white-painted farms and stone-built windmills with brown canvas sails. Large numbers of Portuguese soldiers in brown uniforms were continually going to and fro along the road and there were also a few British officers whose brighter uniforms of scarlet or blue appeared — to Strange's patriotic eye at any rate — more manly and warlike. After they had been riding for three hours they saw a line of mountains rising up from the plain like a wall.

As they entered a narrow valley between two of the highest mountains the Assistant Commissary said, "This is the beginning of the Lines. You see that fort there high up on one side of the pass?" He pointed to the right. The "fort" appeared to have started out life as a windmill, but had recently received all sorts of additions in the way of bastions, battlements and gun embrasures. "And the other fort on the other side of the pass?" added the Assistant Commissary. He pointed to the left. "And then on the next rocky outcrop another little fort? And then — though you can't see it, since today is dull and cloudy — there is another beyond that. And so on and so on. A whole line of forts from the Tagus to the sea! But that is not all! There are two more lines to the north of us. Three lines in all!"

"It is certainly impressive. And did the Portuguese do this?"

"No, sir. Lord Wellington did it. The French mayn't pass here. Why, sir! a beetle mayn't pass unless that beetle has a paper with Lord Wellington's writing on it! And that, sir, is why the French Army sits at Santarem and can get no further, while you and I sleep safe in our beds at Lisbon!"

Very soon they left the road and took a steep and winding lane that led up the hillside to the tiny village of Pero Negro. Strange was struck by the difference between war, as he had imagined it, and war, as it actually was. He had pictured Lord Wellington sitting in some grand building in Lisbon, issuing orders. Instead he found him in a place so small that it barely would have qualified as a village in England.

The Army's Headquarters proved to be an entirely unremarkable house in a plain cobbled yard. Strange was informed that Lord Wellington had gone out to inspect the Lines. No one knew when he would return — probably not until dinner. No one had any objection to Strange's waiting — providing he did not get in their way.

But from the first moment of his entering the house Strange found himself subject to that peculiarly uncomfortable Natural Law which states that whenever a person arrives at a place where he is not known, then wherever he stands he is sure to be in the way. He could not sit because the room he had been placed in contained no chairs — presumably in case the French should somehow penetrate the house and hide behind them — so he took up a position in front of a window. But then two officers came in and one of them wished to demonstrate some important military characteristic of the Portuguese landscape, for which purpose it was necessary to look out of the window. They glared at Strange who moved to stand in front of a half-curtained arch.

Meanwhile a voice was calling every moment from the passage-way for someone named Winespill to bring the gunpowder barrels and to do it quickly. A soldier of very small stature and with a slight hunchback entered the room. He had a vivid purple birth-mark on his face and appeared to be wearing part of the uniform of every regiment in the British Army. This, presumably, was Wine-spill. Winespill was unhappy. He could not find the gunpowder. He hunted in cupboards, under staircases and on balconies. He called back every now and then "One moment!" — until the moment came when he thought to look behind Strange, behind the curtain and under the arch. Immediately he shouted out that he had found the casks of gunpowder now and he would have seen them earlier only Someone — here he gave Strange a very black look — was standing in front of them.

The hours passed slowly. Strange was back at his station by the window and almost falling asleep, when he realized from certain sounds of bustle and disruption that Someone of Importance had just entered the house. The next moment three men swept into the room and Strange found himself at last in the presence of Lord Wellington.

How to describe Lord Wellington? How can such a thing be necessary or even possible? His face is everywhere one looks — a cheap print upon the wall of the coaching inn — a much more elaborate one, embellished with flags and drums, at the top of the Assembly-room staircase. Nowadays no young lady of average romantic feeling will reach the age of seventeen without purchasing at least one picture of him. She will think a long, aquiline nose infinitely preferable to a short, stubby one and consider it the worst misfortune of her life that he is married already. To make up for it she fully intends to name her first-born son, Arthur. Nor is she alone in her devotion. Her younger brothers and sisters are every bit as fanatical. The handsomest toy soldier in an English nursery is always called Wellington and has more adventures than the rest of the toy box put together. Every schoolboy impersonates Well-ington at least once a week, and so do his younger sisters. Well-ington embodies every English virtue. He is Englishness carried to perfection. If the French carry Napoleon in their bellies (which apparently they do), then we carry Wellington in our hearts.
²

Just at present Lord Wellington was none too pleased about something.

"My orders were perfectly clear, I think!" he said to the other two officers. "The Portuguese were to destroy all the corn that they could not carry away, so that it should not fall into the hands of the French. But I have just spent half the day watching the French soldiers going into the caves at Cartaxo and bringing out sacks again."

"It was very hard for the Portuguese farmers to destroy their corn. They feared to be hungry," explained one of the officers.

The other officer made the hopeful suggestion that perhaps it was not corn that the French had found in the sacks, but some-thing else altogether less useful. Gold or silver, perhaps?

Lord Wellington eyed him coolly. "The French soldiers took the sacks to the windmills. The sails were going round in plain view! Perhaps you think they were milling gold? Dalziel, complain to the Portuguese authorities, if you please!" His gaze, darting angrily about the room, came to rest upon Strange. "Who is that?" he asked.

The officer called Dalziel murmured something in his lordship's ear.

"Oh!" said Lord Wellington and then, addressing Strange, he said, "You are the magician." The faintest note of inquiry pervaded his remark.

"Yes," said Strange.

"Mr Norrell?"

"Ah, no. Mr Norrell is in England. I am Mr Strange."

Lord Wellington looked blank.

"The other magician," explained Strange.

"I see," said Lord Wellington.

The officer called Dalziel stared at Strange with an expression of surprize, as if he thought that once Lord Wellington had told Strange who he was, it was rather ill-bred of him to insist on being someone else.

"Well, Mr Strange," said Lord Wellington, "I fear you have had a wasted journey. I must tell you frankly that if I had been able to prevent your coming I would have done so. But now that you are here I shall take the opportunity to explain to you the great nuisance which you and the other gentleman have been to the Army."

"Nuisance?" said Strange.

"Nuisance," repeated Lord Wellington. "The visions you have shewn the Ministers have encouraged them to believe that they understand how matters stand in Portugal. They have sent me a great many more orders and interfered to a far greater extent than they would have done otherwise. Only I know what needs to be done in Portugal, Mr Strange, since only I am acquainted with all the circumstances. I do not say that you and the other gentleman may not have done some good elsewhere — the Navy seem pleased — I know nothing of that — but what I
do
say is that I need no magician here in Portugal."